Magic Statistics

Prime Minister Paul Martin recently told the Montreal Gazette editorial board that another Quebec referendum on sovereignty would not pass because an independent Quebec is not economically viable. Mr Martin thinks that

one of the strongest arguments in his arsenal is the emergence of such global economic giants as China, India and soon Russia to rival the United States.

"It's going to be tough enough for Canada, with all of our assets and a population of 32 to 40 million. But I can tell you, for a country of 8 million to be able to survive as these huge giants collide . . ."

Mark Steyn rightly ridicules PM PM’s "business case for national unity".

Russia is dying–literally: it has the third fastest-shrinking population in the world. As for China and India, a big population is an advantage for a low-wage peasant economy transitioning to advanced industrial status. But population is no advantage at all if you're a settled high-wage lavish-welfare social-democratic state. Canada could have 300-million people and still wouldn't be able to "compete" with China and India: that's the European Union's problem.

The most economically successful countries in the world today, with the sole exception of the United States, are relatively small: Switzerland, Norway, and Singapore. Steyn sardonically adds: "In other words, countries pretty much the size of Quebec". He also mentions the unexpected success of such new European countries as Latvia, Macedonia, and Slovakia.

There is another, in my view even more telling, criticism of the PM’s "business case for national unity" that Mr Steyn does not get into. That is the fact that countries are nations, not businesses.

Most Latvians, Macedonians, and Slovakians did not struggle for independence mainly because they thought it would be good for their pocket-books. Rather, they shared a love for their homeland and a passionate desire to be self-determining and autonomous peoples. Nations survive and thrive because citizens see themselves as a people with a common national life and heritage. This runs far deeper than mere dollars and cents. I doubt many sovereigntists are motivated by a wish for a good-paying job that affords them a home theatre system and a vacation house in the country. Instead, they wish to govern their own affairs and live in peace and freedom in their own land. That’s the basis of the original slogan of Quebec separatism: "Maîtres chez nous", "Masters in our own house".

It’s called patriotism: Love of one’s homeland, its history, its cultural and political achievement, and hope for a flourishing future together as a nation.

Telling Quebecers that they’ll be economically worse off if they separate, even if it were true, is not going to sway many opinions. The simple fact is that a business case for national unity is a non-starter. That the PM would even try to deploy such an argument shows how tone-deaf the Liberals are. If he honestly thinks that’s "one of the strongest arguments in his arsenal", then we can kiss Quebec good-bye right now.

Life may not be too promising for unemployed hate-filled young male rioters, but their sisters have it far worse. Margaret Wente in her latest column reminds us of the living hell women endure in the Muslim ghettos of urban France:

Three years ago, a brave Algerian-born woman named Samira Bellil went public with the story of her horrific life growing up in the immigrant ghettos of France. She described a world in which young girls are routinely brutalized by boys, and where violence against women is endemic. Young women who dare to go out on dates or wear makeup or dress immodestly can be punished by gang rape — also known as tournante, or "passing around".

Samira was first gang-raped when she was 14, by her boyfriend and his friends. "I couldn't say anything, because, in my culture, your family is dishonoured if you lose your virginity," she recalled. "So I kept quiet and the rapes continued." When her parents found out, they kicked her out; her neighbourhood also rejected her. Her book, Dans l'enfer des tournantes, shocked the nation.
. . .
Fadela Amara, an activist of Algerian descent, blames the segregation of North Africans and the racism of French society for the women's plight. But she also has harsh words for the repressive immigrant culture. "Any sign of independence or femininity is viewed as a challenge and a provocation," she told Time magazine. "Daughters, sisters, cousins, female neighbours must either act like submissive but virtuous vassals, or be treated like cheap whores."

Today, she says, the most powerful person in the family is not the father but the eldest son. "The sons are treated like kings. They are not just preferred over the girls, they are spoiled and coddled." Sexual violence against girls is so widely accepted that the attackers don't feel they've done anything wrong. They feel the girls deserve it because they're whores and sluts.

The plight of abused Muslim women would be regarded as intolerable if the victims were culturally French. But a pervasive cultural relativism, largely rooted in the left, has allowed France to tolerate the intolerable for quite a while. The results aren't pretty.

That's putting it mildly.

Sons have taken over the families of French Muslims and allowed to rape women virtually at will. I think that goes a long way to explaining why they feel free to run amok.

Read the whole thing.